INTRODUCTION

Agricultural production is faced with the challenges of adapting to climate change and socioeconomic disruptions, providing ecosystem services, and reducing pollution while simultaneously fostering human health and supporting social and economic well-being and inclusion. Increasing climate variability calls for more resilient and stable agricultural systems. Intensification of agriculture during the past 70 years has increased yield per unit of land by promoting low-diversity, high-disturbance cropping systems that depend on high amounts of external inputs such as fertilizers, irrigation, and germplasm with greater harvest index and shorter life cycle (Cassman, 1999). Federal policies such as farm subsidies, credit, and insurance programs have encouraged intensification. In spite of yield benefits, there are also many undesirable outcomes, including degradation of soil, water, and air quality; loss of biodiversity; negative impacts on human health; and exclusion of marginalized populations (Ramankutty et al., 2018). Thus, critics of intensification call for a redesign of agricultural systems and the landscapes in which they occur (Bommarco et al., 2013) supported by policies that do not disincentivize such innovation.

Mitigating the impact of agricultural intensification requires new frameworks for research, production, commercialization, and policy. Examples of proposed frameworks include “organic,” “sustainable,” “natural,” “regenerative,” “carbon smart,” and “ecological” agriculture. Often these frameworks are defined by expected outcomes rather than structural features of the system, and result in confusion among farmers, researchers, policymakers, and consumers. Moreover, prevailing conventional approaches to research and outreach can themselves become barriers to adoption of innovation. Therefore, the goal of this perspective paper is to describe a straightforward and practical framework for fostering greater benefits and fewer undesired impacts of agriculture. This framework is based on agroecosystems containing forages that have the structural features of diversity, perenniality, and circularity, and use of transdisciplinary approaches to foster transitions to these systems.

Diverse perennial circular forage systems (DPCFSs), an agroecosystem type described below, offer a more sustainable alternative to input intensification approaches. Broad-scale adoption of DPCFS will result in these benefits accruing at the community, society, and global scales. However, government policies such as farm subsidies, financial credits, and insurance programs frequently disincentivize change. Current “linear” economies (as opposed to “circular,” see below) result in negative externalities, market failures, and missed markets. Additionally, many social barriers exist, including farm labor structures, scales of production, producer concerns about market reliability, and access to information. Farmer and consumer values and attitudes can also present barriers to change.

In this paper, we present a nonsystematic integrative literature review (Snyder, 2019) to synthesize the literature on the linkages between structural features of agroecosystems (diversity, perenniality, and circularity) and the system outcomes (resilience, ecosystem services, and socioeconomic benefits). We also review the related socioeconomic and political barriers to adoption and alternative enabling conditions for a landscape transition from currently prevailing agroecosystem to DPCFS that emerge from a transdisciplinary process (Figure 1).

DIVERSE PERENNIAL CIRCULAR FORAGE SYSTEMS

Agroecosystems are units of agricultural productivity composed of physical, biological, socioeconomic, and cultural subsystems interacting as a community within a larger framework of human-led agricultural processes (Cordoba et al., 2020). Agroecology, as a set of agricultural practices that mimic natural ecological processes to improve agricultural sustainability, has gained global consensus as a viable approach to sustainability gains. Multiple pathways toward greater sustainability in agriculture are possible through agroecology because the concept applies across diverse subsystems types and the varied ways in which they function as communities. Transitions to the agroecosystem approach to increased agricultural sustainability include political, social, economic, environmental, and technological shifts in policies, practices, and institutions (Wenzel et al., 2020). Crop-livestock agroecosystems provide food, income, and risk reduction to farmers and contribute to agricultural value chains. Although the global environmental footprint of livestock production and consumption is a concern, a diversity of forages grown in well-managed agroecosystems have been shown to provide multiple benefits not achievable through conventional intensification of agriculture (Notenbaert et al., 2021; Rao et al., 2015). Forage crops and pastures play an important role in sustainable agriculture because of their value as a feed for livestock and for their roles in biodiversity, wildlife habitat, climate change mitigation, and soil quality. Because they are highly adaptable to a wide range of environmental and grazing/harvest conditions, forages are an essential component in agroecosystem-based approaches to agricultural suitability across landscapes.

Agricultural landscapes vary in climate, soils, infrastructure, demographics, and other characteristics. Therefore, innovative agricultural systems must be applicable across a wide range of agricultural landscapes to address the current challenges at broader scales and to achieve desired outcomes across socioeconomic strata. We argue that agroecosystem approaches are the most effective approach across variable landscapes, and that forage agroecosystems share three common structural features: diversity, perenniality, and circularity. These three structural features are linked to desirable system outcomes like resilience, ecosystem services, and socioeconomic benefits, as described in the next section. Therefore, a landscape transformation toward DPCFS can achieve sustainability and multifunctionality. Examples of DPCFS systems adaptable across a wide range of landscape types are those that include crop rotations with perennial forages (leys), living mulches, intercropping, and grass–legume pastures. Although DPCFSs have been proposed for marginal, highly erodible lands (Awasthia et al., 2017), we believe that there is realistic opportunity to expand them to highly productive lands as well. Through our proposed framework, we recommend focus on forages and crops (rather than specific livestock species) to better foster adoption of DPCFS. The result will be the transformation of agricultural landscapes toward greater sustainability. Moreover, we seek to expand the analysis of farm productivity beyond specific products such as “grains, dairy, or meat” toward broader holistic metrics of production like the private and public benefits—economic, environmental, and social—of increased resilience and biodiversity.

SYSTEM OUTCOMES AND THEIR LINK WITH STRUCTURAL FEATURES

SOCIOECONOMIC-POLITICAL CONTEXT

Disruptions to natural nutrient cycling currently challenging agriculture and human society are driven by economic, political, and other social processes. Understanding and changing those processes will allow society to adapt to resultant environmental impacts (Foster et al., 2010). We argue that increased adoption of DPCFS can support both mitigation of, and adaptation to, those disruptions by providing new economic opportunities for farmers while contributing to a more inclusive and equitable agricultural system. Within environmental social sciences, there exist several perspectives about how social, political, and economic institutions react and respond to ongoing ecological degradation and social inequity. For example, a treadmill of production analysis predicts the internalization of unintended ecological and social costs currently unaccounted for in our economic production systems (e.g., Gould et al., 2008). Critical political ecology perspectives examine the internal contradictions of modern economic processes and seek to redesign more circular material economies (e.g., Foster et al., 2010). Ecological modernization argues that the growing ubiquity of environmental feedback results in the evolution of social institutions of modernity to accommodate and adapt to that feedback (Mol et al., 2009). In spite of the tensions between interpretations of macro social change and conflict, our pragmatic approach to landscape transformation focuses on mobilizing social, political, and human capital (Flora et al., 2015) to identify and leverage opportunities for transformation of agricultural systems.

Farmer value orientation influences decision-making regarding production system choices. In many cases, an environmental and communitarian orientation predicts greater openness to adopting sustainable agriculture practices, while more individualistic and instrumental values' orientation is associated with a preference for conventional practices (Jackson-Smith & Buttel, 2003). Frameworks incorporating farmer knowledge networks and adaptive decision-making exist and provide crucial insight into farmers' concerns regarding adoption of these practices (Rosch-McNally et al., 2017). Farmers use various types of rationales in decision-making processes (Finan, 2011), and notions of personal identity and what it means to be a “good farmer” can lend further insight into social factors related to farmer motivations for adopting sustainable practices (Mcguire et al., 2013).

The diversity in farmer histories and values is crucial in developing effective policy and education that encourage and support the adoption of sustainable farming and land management practices (Mills et al., 2017). Social characteristics such as race, gender identity, age, and ableness are relevant in shaping those histories and values (Taylor, 2018; Wright & Annes, 2020). Transitioning to more environmentally sustainable systems can enhance social and economic well-being for farmers, rural communities, and society at large. For these synergistic benefits to be realized, however, issues of social inclusion must be intentionally addressed in the development of policy, lest we risk perpetuating existing patterns of social privilege, often invisible or ignored. The policy can be crafted in a way that serves the particular interests and needs of women and/or people of color. When diverse stakeholders are included in policy development, the resulting tools are more likely to be successfully implemented and the primary desired outcomes achieved, while also contributing to the equitable inclusion of people of color and women.

TRANSDISCIPLINARITY FOR TRANSITION TO DIVERSE PERENNIAL CIRCULAR FORAGE SYSTEMS

We argue that the transformation of agricultural landscapes to provide more environmental, ecological, and socioeconomic benefits and fewer undesirable outcomes (compared to prevailing systems of agricultural intensification) can be achieved through the adoption of diverse perennial circular systems (among others). Further, we argue that it is only through transformative approaches to knowledge production, decision-making, and problem-solving that we can overcome the deeply entrenched political, cultural, technical, and economic barriers to the adoption of these systems. For us, a central component of that approach is transdisciplinarity. We define transdisciplinarity as an ontological system that explicitly incorporates actors from a wide variety of disciplines (e.g., agronomy, sociology, economics), collaborating with each other and nonacademic practitioners (i.e., farmers, industry) and stakeholders (e.g., nongovernment organizations) to build a new, communally constituted, knowledge system (Halvorsen et al., 2015).

Transdisciplinarity processes are used to identify and address complex real-world problems by integrating multiple perspectives and understandings into new, emergent, and shared understandings. Additionally, transdisciplinary teams seek to generate this knowledge in ways that empower those who have historically been closed out of knowledge production and decision-making (Hirsch Hadorn et al., 2006). As a “transformational scientific field,” transdisciplinarity is regarded as having the power to bridge knowledge and action by producing deeper understanding of issues (systems knowledge), determining more inclusive ways to make decisions, and knowledge of ways and means of realizing those decisions (Marshall et al., 2018).

CONCLUSIONS

Diverse perennial circular forage systems such as those with crop rotations that include perennial forages, living mulches, intercropping, or grass–legume pastures can foster resilience to climate change and provide multiple ecosystem services and socioeconomic benefits in agricultural landscapes. Policy and economic measures can help promote these systems by overcoming social, economic, and policy barriers with the goal of social inclusion, economic well-being, and human health. A transdisciplinary approach involving researchers from a broad range of disciplines and diverse stakeholders is needed to engage in social change to make this needed landscape transformation happen.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Valentin D. Picasso: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, supervision, writing–original draft, writing–review and editing. Marisol Berti: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Kim Cassida: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing. Sarah Collier: Writing—review and editing. Di Fang: Writing—review and editing. Ann Finan: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Margaret Krome: Writing—review and editing. David Hannaway: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing. William Lamp: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Andrew W. Stevens: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Carol Williams: Conceptualization, visualization, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflict of interest.